Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Theater Whore: The Wolverine

Before I start this will be full of spoilers. I was not a fan of the first Wolverine movie seeing as how Liev Schreiber seemed to be the only one that decided to take the script seriously. The rest of the film was a bloodless confusing film. My biggest problem is letting go of comic book shit and just watching a movie which is why I love when things have no history to them. I cant sit there and go “That is so not how that is supposed to happen!” With Wolverine you are dealing with a character that has decades worth of history in comics and has been alive for a few hundred years. Then you have the movie version (he has appeared in six films now) where they seem to mix things up even further. Okay, I am jumping ahead of myself. The Wolverine is a series of action scenes with a plot that if you kept thinking about it would make your face explode which would be okay with him because he can heal. Sometimes. Then fine others. Then not so much the next. Oh, fuck it.

I’m gonna be doing this one differently because honestly this is going to be a huge bitchfest. I will try my best to stick to just the previous films and not bring up all the differences between them and the comics. With as many films as there have been this will not be all that hard to do.

Hugh Jackman as Logan/Wolverine is living in the woods up in Canada with a terrible looking CGI bear and has vowed not to kill anymore. Some hunters shoot the bear with poison arrows but don’t kill it forcing him to so he say fuck everything fleshy and wants to kill again until this strange looking chick stops him, takes him to Japan, and wastes the next two hours of your life. See, Wolverine is sick of being alive and knowing he cant die. It doesn’t help that Jean Grey keeps popping up all “You killed me so you should die and then we can be together forever!” His friend he saved from the bomb in Hiroshima years ago is dying and reveals that he can give Wolverine death while making others live longer. Sounds like a win/win for me!This should have been called “The Wolverine Naps” because he sure sleeps a lot in this. By the fourth time he woke up gasping with his claws out I was like “Okay, I get it! He cant sleep without things popping out!” Neither can I. Know what I’m sayin’? He doesn’t even quite look Wolverine-ish in the film. His hair is very not Wolverine. And it is filled with people saying things that later become very important. “Japanese sword…two hands.” Oh, fuck you.

Hiroyuki Sanada plays Shingen Yashida is the guy that Wolverine saved in Japan. East, who took me to see this, pointed out how not so bad the radiation from the bomb was. Wolverine takes a piece of metal from the cell/hole door and shields him leaving him with just a scar on his cheek. He goes to live a long life and even wants more of it! He turns out to be a dick and eventually becomes the Silver Samurai. Fuck him, too.

Rila Fukushima stars as Yukio who is by far the most interesting thing about this movie. She has psychic powers and can see when people are going to die. She I badass as all get out. When she is not on the screen the film is way less interesting. But I still couldn’t get used to her face.

Svetlana Khodchenkova is Dr. Green/Viper. This woman actually managed to suck all the personality out of the movie. I have never seen this woman and never want to see her in a movie again. She sucked. She wasn’t scary. Her outfit looked like crap. She is the one that infected Wolverine with something that could dampen his powers making him vulnerable. Guess when she got him? Yep. While he was sleeping. She can spit poison, has a long tongue, and heal the skin she burns with her acid. She is a scientist as well. Seriously, I have no idea how this woman was hired for this movie. She sucked so bad. She cant die from poisons and stuff but that doesn’t explain how she survives a damn near ten story drop with an arrow in her chest!

Tao Okamoto play Mariko. She is the granddaughter of the old dude Wolverine saved. She is set to inherit everything once he dies. Wolverine saves her multiple times and she acts like she is half stupid. I was waiting for her to suddenly use powers because she was so calm about the fucking situation. No. She was just stupid.

Going back to previous films, Mariko was in X2. She was played by Kelly Hu and was also known as Lady Deathstrike. Now, this new film takes place sometime after that. Wolverine fought her hand to hand and killed her. Is this another case of Wolverine’s shitty memory taking place like how he has met Xavier in the first Wolverine film and in X-Men: First Classbut it seems like the first time in the first X-Men film? You cant say that the timeline is different because its built as all of them being connected. Don’t get me started on how Beast has been in three films played by three different people and being built three different ways. Famke Janssen as Jean Grey keeps popping in Wolverine’s dreams and giving him a guilt trip. They are continuing this thing where Wolverine wanted to fuck her and is upset that she is gone. They didn’t have a relationship in the movies. She was boning Cyclops until she killed him so hard he landed in Superman. I was waiting for her to suddenly release the Phoenix power out of anger with Wolverine deciding that he really wanted to live. She just smiles and walks away. That’s it. Why even have this in the story for it to wrap up so fast?! Oh, because Janssen only had two days to film her part.

Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen show up as Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto in an extra scene working together to further confuse me. I sank further into my chair seeing how old McKellen looks now. Yeah, I know he is old but I don’t think I wanna see him in that costume again. This movie was not fun. The only parts I kinda laughed at involved Yukio saying or doing something. The rest just either had me upset with where the story was headed or how inconsistent the pacing was. This movie felt so damned long.Click here for previous Theater Whore.